vaultofthearchonfandomcom-20200214-history
105139-why-didnt-you-guys-go-b2p
Content ---- ---- ---- ---- You say that as if people don't play non-subscription games | |} ---- They do, but most of them suck. So... there's that. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- Only cost me 7.5 | |} ---- people do. they are often the same people that pay out gobs of cash per month MORE than the they would spend on a subscription, but complain about 14.99 I prefer sub based games for the community and because if nothing else...level playing field. everyone is faced with the same obstacles, has a chance to get the same gear etc. | |} ---- ---- I absolutely love Guild Wars 2's model as well (which btw, is also published by NCSoft, just like Wildstar, but I'm sure everyone here knows that). Just buy an original copy of the game and that's it; the rest is free, including their frequent content updates and events. Too bad that the lack of more 5-man PvE content didn't appeal to my friends. On the flipside, I abhor World of Warcraft's model. Buy the original copy, buy each expansion and still pay for a monthly subscription. Having to buy expansions on top of the monthly is what drove me and my friends to quit WoW. Wildstar, on the other hand, is somewhere in the middle of the two. We still have to buy the original copy and we have to pay monthly, but at least we don't have to buy expansions and there is the option of buying CREDD with plat. Of course, it's a genius move on Carbine's part to make CREDD cost $20. So, even if most players here are playing the game "for free" using their plat, Carbine is actually making more money in the form of CREDD sales. | |} ---- What makes you think this game wont have paid expansions? (possibly CREDD alternative to purchase by then) | |} ---- Its not the price thats the problem, its the psychology behind it. $15 per month is not a whole lot of money...but would you pay for something you don't use, or you feel is overpriced? If you walked into a fast food restaurant, and they had "Free coke!" or "$1.50 for Pepsi", which would you choose? Sure, some people like Pepsi, and don't mind paying it, but the coke is still free. Unless you're heavily dedicated to Pepsi, its hard to rationalize the expendature of money, when you have alternatives, or are not even sure if you'll drink the whole thing. Sure, the Coke is only free because they hope you'll buy a burger and fries, but you could just enjoy your nice beverage instead, or even just buy a burger worth $1.50 anyway if you feel like it. Analogies aside, it really comes down to you can play a F2P game whenever you want, with no "up front" costs. There's literally nothing to lose by playing it. To play a P2P game, its $15. If you decide that you don't feel like it 2 days after, or get tired of the same problems a week in, you're out the $15. Not a huge amount of money, but its still essentially a waste of money. So you have to be sure you want to commit to something for a whole month, while F2P/B2P has no such barrier of entry. This is...both true, and untrue. While the month to month is not quite so big, they do still generally have substantial updates. Rift is currently working on its second expansion, which is allegedly between the original game, and Storm Legion in size. SWTOR had "The Hutt Cartel", housing, multiplayer space battles, and multiple raids after going F2P. Neverwinter is currently gearing up for Module 4, which includes a whole new zone, character class, and playable race, on top of previous ones which had essentially the same number of additions. GW2 is adding new zones, and bi-weekly story zone updates with its season 2 update. While its less MMO, Warframe also adapted a F2P scheme, and has added multiple large additions to the game, uncluding new warframes, enemy types, zone types, etc. F2P games are most indeed capable of releasing quality content. I will not argue the monitazation side of things, as yes, many have...less than perfect monetization of F2P. But F2P is far from a death toll for content, especially since many of the highest grossing games of 2013 were in fact, ones which were also F2P. If anything, I'd say its less content drops, but more "bigger" ones, as its the big ones which have the best chance of drawing people back to the game, with new classes/races, whole new zones, etc. OT: Its likely just because thats what the developers are used to. As seen in the game, many things are "Old school", so they likely expected the market to be the same. Old school MMO players pay for an MMO like old school. The CREDD somewhat alleviates the problem of player retention, as the hardcore players will have excess money they can use to buy CREDD, while those with more money than sense can buy CREDD and trade for in game money. This gets them essentially a psuedo-F2P for those willing to tough it out and grind money, but only on the top end of things. Whether the sub model works out for them remains to be seen (Currently its working for ESO, which is sitting at ~700K subscribers, last I knew. And FFXIV has similar high subbers, so its possible to succeed with Subs still.), but it was likely just because it was how it was done before, and used to work to...some degree, anyhow. Don't expect anything in the short term, as far as possible B2P/F2P goes, it'll probably be at least a year from launch before we truly hear how Wildstar has really "done" in the long run, and how its gonna go from the future on. | |} ---- ---- you win the prize for worst analogy of the week F2play is never really free, I will never play a F2play MMO again. If I want to shop online Ebay is ----> that way. Op that is a very large and very incorrect assumption you make, why do you think that they never considered other models? they most certainly would have, your assumption that Carbine is ignorant of the available models and the pro's and con's of each is.. well.. I don't have a polite enough way to finish that sentence. They made a deliberate informed decision on the games payment model. imagine that. | |} ---- ---- Heh, the business model is actually one of the few things I like about WoW*. I want big content updates. BIG ones. Not one little event or map per month. Those are nice extras, but can't really satisfy me in the long run. I'm one of the people who watched in abject horror as the gaming industry was taken over by nickel & dime DLCs step by step after an age of glorious expansion packs that usually were about 2/3 as big as the base game (and also cost that much). GW2 drove me away in the end because I bought the game expecting the same model as GW1. GW1 released so much new content every year for money... GW2 has crappy tiny scraps every few weeks. Not a fan. *Minus the cash shop. Triple dipping is absolutely disgusting and Blizzard should be ashamed. Yet people will defend and cater to even this amount of sheer greed. "Blah blah they're a business, blah, no one is forced to use it, blah..." | |} ---- And this is why not everyone would succedd in being a financial mmo guru... | |} ---- The upfront fee is what pays back the initial development costs.. No initial investment and only sub.. sounds a lot like F2P with a premium account.. | |} ---- ---- ---- WoW and it's expansions count as an MMO right? Cataclysm sold 3.3 million copies in the first 24 hrs | |} ---- Expansions don't count. A new MMO that went from 0 to 3 million in 9 months. WoW had like 8 million subs going in to cata. | |} ---- ---- You mean how I can spend 20 dollars and get enough platinum to pimp out my character with two full sets (dps / support) of optimal gear within fifteen minutes of selling that CREDD while others will have to grind for weeks to achieve the same? | |} ---- As usual hyperbole is serving no one except people looking to dismantle your argument (if it's valid, which I don't feel like getting into again). A CREDD (i.e. those 20 dollars) can be grinded out in a day right now, not weeks. You're being silly. :rolleyes: | |} ---- They might! | |} ---- Thanks for paying my sub for a month. Also, yes that is still a level playing field. That equipment didn't magic itself out of a hat, someone farmed it and put it up for sale. If you're trying to claim that buying off the AH is in some way pay to win, you're failing hard. I got lucky on one of my whole 9 boom boxes and made almost 10 plat. You could use that same argument. | |} ---- Much higher level of active marketing and an existing playerbase from the previous game, those two points makes so that some will buy on "reputation" alone. However, did they actaully have 3 million active players after those 9 months? That to me is a more important metric than total copies old since active player generate more revenue beyond the initial sale. Long time since I took a look at GW2's cash shop so can't really speak about it but I don't think sub games are going the way of the dodo. There is still a place for them. Because someone has to pay RL money for that credd, and it's not Carbine. So if you are already shelling out money for credds then why not also for a sub? For me personally, I have been hoping around on alts so haven't reached the level (nor had the incentive) to make the kind of in-game money where I could pay for a credd. | |} ---- ---- But… since ArenaNet doesn't talk about active players, that could be the beginning and the end of their revenue story. It's not of course, but we can't assume otherwise if they're not going to say. WildStar hasn't sold 3 million copies yet, but the recurring revenue is likely eclipsing what GW2 is currently doing by quite a bit. | |} ---- Yes, if you are level 50 and play all day long. Also, I'm not sure what the price is on your realms but on mine it has already hit and passed the ten platinum threshold. Can you farm ten platinum within a day? Because I can earn twenty dollars within a 8 hour workday. If yes, do share some of those secrets. With how gear drops currently are one can bypass the grind and frustration by dropping enough dollars to get themselves pre-raid BiS equipment from crafting and pay for a PVP rating boost for the weapon. For the average player, the one that can only log in for an hour or two each day, earning that will take far longer than a day. Heck, even if it was only a day... it's still not a level playing field. Someone has to give up the labour of their grind to be able to play while someone else gets to keep their farmed money and is given someone else's farmed money on top of it. Yes, that means the latter has spent more real dollars than the former. But people usually gravitate towards subscription based games because those at least try to give the illusion of a level playing field unlike B2P and F2P titles. | |} ---- Haha absolutely not. :ph34r: But even the widely known house farming circle method is lucrative enough for several platinum a day. The bottom line is: People who know how to make MMO money will always have an advantage. The average joe earns enough to buy CREDD for cash but probably doesn't know how to make MMO money. So if anything, this evens the playing field instead of skewing it. If you can't make real life money or MMO money... well too bad. Better yourself. | |} ---- ---- Basically, this. | |} ---- I don't understand how someone can go through the process of 1) being in a house with its own set of bills, one that's important to this convo being 2) electricity, 3) get a computer 4) get an internet connection 5) buy the game and THEN stumble at 15 dollars a month. How do people get that far then stumble on such a low hurdle? That being said i didn't choose the CREDD life. The CREDD life chose me. | |} ---- I don't doubt that and while I like to achieve personal goals through actually playing the game (going to earn that spacious house one of these days...) as it simply feels better, I do appreciate the existence of CREDD as it allows me to be careless with repair bills, resurrecting at the spot and giving gold to friends. That being said, let's call a spade a spade. It's an advantage. Being successful in real life shouldn't matter in the game because the very premise of games and sports is that may the one with more skill and dedication win. (A premise that gets ignored by far too many nowdays, in my opinion.) I don't get to buy Aberdeen Airport by slapping down twenty actual dollars on the Monopoly board. I shouldn't be able to buy the best gear or all the dyes or the most expensive housing items by dropping twenty actual dollars into Carbine's pocket. Our forum discussions obviously won't influence this system now that it's out but I don't think it's fair to dismiss the consequences of CREDD. Some people get to play the game for free and that's wonderful while some people get to "cheat" a bit which is not so wonderful but at least allows for the former to happen. | |} ---- Yeah it'd be so much better if they just kept their plat and nobody got to spend it. Much better for the game AND the community that way. | |} ---- Also, all of this ^^ is your opinion with no actual reasons WHY it shouldn't be so. All you've established is that you don't like people having more money than other people. | |} ---- I've played GW2 and it's in a horrible horrible condition. 1. They're only counting the copies sold. Even with megaservers the game felt pretty empty when I left it 2. Because of the whole gems to gold deal over the years the ability to get money was just nerfed nerfed and nerfed. You want to do world bosses? Oh I'm sorry, you'll only get the reward once a day per account and they're also on schedule now, so if you can't log in at this particular time, bad luck, they will only go up twice a day! Oh you liked running dungeons? Oh I'm sorry the reward is now once a day per account! Oh you want to participate in the newest update? Pay gold to spawn enemies to kill. Oh right, we require perfect coordination, but due to megaservers 70% of all people on this map will not even speak your language! 3. Because of the B2P model barely any permanent content has been released during the years. 2 months in here we have a new permanent zone, more story and a new battleground. That's almost more than what GW2 gave out in 2 years. "We released a new mini dungeon! Hurry up because it will be gone in a week!" There are B2P and F2P games out there. Some of them are quite good. By all means people go and play them. I had a bad experience with those and wouldn't exactly want to be playing a B2P/F2P MMO right now. | |} ---- I thought it was a smart idea for ArenaNet, but not a be-all, end-all strategy for the mmo market. Especially, looking at the kind of game ESO was going to be, I had to wonder why anyone would pick that over GW2. Pvp players don't require as much content updates, so it was a smart move to make a b2p model for them, especially with a brand name that could sell a lot upfront. More general thoughts on the topic - It looks to me like a lot of models can work, although I really doubt the long term viability of f2p. Also, from what I have heard SWTOR is more like free to demo than actually f2p, so, even among titles with that tag associated with them, there are a lot of variations. I could see Carbine dropping the box price first. That there were discounts available pre-launch suggests they don't have the brand name and advertising many other mmo's have. If it were 15$ or 20$ on Steam for the game and first month that would get more people coming through. At a certain point in time that will probably make more financial sense. It would definitely make more sense than redoing the whole econ to accommodate f2p and a cash shop, as that would screw up their secondary income in CREDD as well as their primary. | |} ---- Agreed, but as I mentioned in one of my posts in this thread: This really couldn't be expected. GW1 was B2P and had gigantic, high quality expansions in acceptable intervals. Neither did the game die, nor did Arenanet go bankrupt, nor did they have to change their approach after the first expansion. So it was obviously a viable business model. I have no idea what went wrong in GW2 apart from "we wanted to see if a different method can make more money". | |} ---- Scarlet Briar happened. Terrible content choice that they went all-in on for over a year. | |} ---- GW1 was a CORPG and not an MMO. The only places made for MMO were the towns. There are other CORPG B2P games out there that are doing good, but it's important to remember that those games were not Massively Multiplayer nor were they designed to be Massively Multiplayer, meaning that MMOs should be approached differently. That's why GW2 seemed so experimental. | |} ---- Okay, but GW1 still had servers, user accounts, PvP, dungeons... Point is, I don't see what major difference between a "real" MMO (GW2) and GW1 made the change from a business model that had proven itself necessary. | |} ---- Well, I never said the f2p titles don't update at all. What I wanted to point out is the frequent monthly update schedule that makes Wildstar a little outstanding and 'worth' the subs system. Or even more: It is important to keep that aim and schedule up! The other (F2P) titles need more time for their updates... and to get them paid in way of Shops etc. | |} ---- But it's perfectly fine if you are "given" said money (with possibly other forms of payments or stipulations)? I have never understood why giving someone in-game money is perfectly fine and fair but selling it for RL money is not. And so far I have not seen any explanation that has convinced to me to treat them differently, mainly because they center around that you didn't "earn" the game currency you bought for RL money. Well, to me being given game currency or buying it are on the same level of "earned". | |} ---- It's not that one is more fair than the other, it's that one is a charity while the other is a transaction. :) In-game transactions are normally closed. Gold for item or some sort of in-game service. If you allow things outside of the game to enter the trade then that radically changes the worth of the in-game commodities and devalues both time and effort invested into the game. Five hours spent at your job will always be more valuable in-game than five hours spent actually playing the game. That's logical but it harms the integrity of a level playing field. A subscription is meant to eradicate that problem. Not that it completely can (there will always be gold sellers) but it will attempt to do it. When you give away something you yourself have earned for no recompense then none of that happens. The receiver didn't earn any of it but that hasn't changed the value of the gifted commodities. The only way gifting could devalue time and effort invested into the game is if you can consistently gift an infinite amount of a given currency or service - be it platinum, some item, a boss kill or PvP rating. That isn't possible unless you hack the game. | |} ---- You raise very good points and make a very rational distinction of why it shouldn't be in the game. But as you say, since we can't fully stop it due to third party sites then, imho, the next question would be what an acceptable level of official support for RL transactions are. For me, that is at entry level raiding. | |} ---- however, what this does is eliminate the gold sellers. it give people that would NORMALLY buy gold in game a legal alternative AND redistributes the wealth already in game in point of fact, many people selling CREDD at the moment bought when it was being offered very cheaply. currently given most prices of CREDD in game, it is hardly a benefit to offer if for sale on most servers. not sure how that is a benefit for teh person buying it except it gives them a month to play for in game cash. and the seller... not exactly a huge benefit there either. | |} ---- This was the entire argument for removing Diablo 3's auction house. If you can pay for gold with RL money it's pay2win. It's the same as playing WoW and buying asian gold and going on the AH buying BoE raid epics. | |} ---- Nothing went wrong in GW2... Why do people assume because they quit a game is dead?... rofl The maps are still full to the brim and still queues for WvW. | |} ---- hahahahaha @ empty You can play GW2 2 years after launch and see 10x more people leveling 1-80 than you will in WS which is one of the most hyped MMOs in the last decade 1-50. GW2 WvW. Constant queue to get in during peak hours. WS Warplots. You can sit in queue for 24 hours in north america and not see one game pop. | |} ---- | |} ---- Why didn't you buy more Gems in GW2? THAT'S WHY YOU BETRAYED ARENANET AND THE INDUSTRY | |} ---- There's a new event out isn't there? I come back for about a week or two every month or so, always fun, it's about time too. | |} ---- well, in that case any game where you have to buy a copy of the game to play is pay to win. I mean if you werent THERE then you wouldnt need to go to the AH. so who would you make suffer first? the people that wouldnt be around using CREDD to stay subbed or the people putting it up for sale? I mean I get that you hate the system, I get that you figure people buying or selling CREDD are cheating. I GET that you want the game f2p and since you will have the inevitable response of "I dont want it f2p" then what system would you suggest? | |} ---- Their living story picked back up with some 2 week momentum again, because if you don't login every two weeks and flag your account as having "seen" new content, you have to unlock it in the gem store later as punishment for being an unfaithful fan. Which I think is fair for everyone involved. More smartly-structured content that doesn't expire, a cash window for arena.net, and a steady schedule(for now). NOW BRING BACK THE RETRO GAME BOX MODE, WHHAHEERPSOEJKPSEJLS